Seefeel

The massively creative and formative UK band releases its first LP since 1996. Boredoms drummer Iida Kazuhisa guests.

To place them in the context of some of their UK guitar peers, Seefeel neither had a singular creative presence like Kevin Shields, nor did they feature the lush pop songwriting of Ride. Instead they were an ideas band, trying to place techno/rave's quickening rhythms in the context of processed guitar music. Because they executed those ideas so perfectly, it makes sense that they've regrouped more than a decade later in the name of new ideas.

I would like to think that Seefeel principals Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock planned this all along, that they were biding their time until another potent, fully formed musical thought occurred. Last fall's Faults EP made it clear this wasn't the case: The band was still chewing on sounds and fumbling with rhythms. Any hope Seefeel viewed Faults as a stepping stone instead of a new a aesthetic goes out the window on Seefeel, the band's first full-length record since 1996.

Seefeel is a thorny album, a thicket of crackling guitars and faltering rhythms. Peacock's sparse, drifting vocals-- at this point the last remaining element of the band's previous work-- navigate their way through by gingerly pulling branches aside. The rhythms-- usually live drums-- are supplied by former Boredoms drummer Iida Kazuhisa, but they contain none of that band's combustible clamor. Instead they grapple with the guitars in slow motion. (I'm reminded of professional hockey fights in which the players, with handfuls of each other's jerseys, awkwardly tussle.) Seefeel's guitars now scrape and smolder, but the foggy landscapes they evoke on tracks like "Rip-Run" and, um, "Dead Guitars" don't seem as rich as those molded by Fennesz or Black Dice.

Seefeel have thankfully retained the ability to build an environment. If their previous albums sounded womb-like, Seefeel is more like being an overgrown forest, including the nagging discomfort: "This place has a dark beauty, but I wish my socks weren't damp." That discomfort may be one of the compositional aims of Seefeel, and sometimes it leads to arresting, challenging anti-pop, like on "Step Down", where Peacock pines sweetly over an ominous mechanical advance.

I want to admire Seefeel for its decisive move away from the band's past, but I can't find the complexity and depth that allowed them to take an exhausting style-- shoegaze-- and turn it into something new and special. I don't care that Seefeel no longer chip hypnotic rhythms out of blocks if icy guitars, but it bothers me a lot that the simple drum pattern on "Rip-Run" never evolves and that Peacock sounds strangled. The issue isn't one of an old fan pining for glory days; it's an old fan wondering if Seefeel would deserve notice if it were released by a group of 20-year-olds in New York or London. The answer is yes, I think, but just barely.